Wellington improv group Best on Tap is in its 10^th year and reckon they’ve amassed 165 years of experience between them! A format based on good friends chatting about their lives, past and present, should come naturally to them, then. And it does, with their customary flair for “truth-based spontaneous theatre” that traverses a spectrum of human emotions.

The BATS Dome space is furnished with two sofas, stage left, their signature clutch of four red boxes upstage right, and far right, the keyboard at which Matt Hutton is poised to contribute mood music. Likewise D’ Woods is reading to improvise on lights.

Clare Kerrison introduces her other co-performers for the night: Barry Miskimmin, Mary Little, Geoff Simmons, Wiremu Tuhiwai, Tim Croft and Kate Whitaker. She describes the latter phase of a dinner party when good friends retire to the lounge area – and asks us what topics of conversation might arise between friends. “Moving in with a partner” and “Not enough room in the wardrobe” are picked up …

Mary’s story of moving in with her partner (acknowledged as Matt in real life), from her flat in Newtown to a hilly part of Oriental Bay, provokes Kate and Wiremu to act out carrying unboxed belongings and a large item of furniture up an endless zigzag – a very Wellington scenario.

It’s Geoff and Barry who, as David and James, confront the too-small wardrobe issue. One has an extensive dress-up collection while the other has ‘man toys’, better suited to the garage. Their primary school teacher’s homily is judiciously recalled: “Equal but different.”  

Back on the couch, Tim and Clare wrestle with the relative significance of referring to a significant other as girl/boyfriend or partner. And so Between Friends evolves, oscillating from cosy chats to playing out … It’s not always the chat the provokes the play – sometimes it goes vice-versa. Personal back-stories with geographical imperatives emerge with such sincerity there is no telling what is rooted in the actors’ actual lives and what is conjured in the moments. (Excuse my using actor names where character names haven’t been mentioned.)

Barry’s clumsy attempt to propose to Kate in a café after years of living together doesn’t end well despite the pre-ordered music and surprise barbershop quartet. Wiremu’s poignant memory of a childhood crush on a girl who dated his older brother – “But what’s dating when you’re eight?” – leads to his excruciating recollection of ‘the water slide incident’. A dolphin-watching scenario, a gift to Mary, reveals the selfless generosity of Kate, who suffers from seasickness.

Clare introduces Mary to horse-riding and a succession of time-jumps lead to Daisy, the horse, getting higher and higher (the inverse of how it would seem as one grows from childhood to adulthood – but there’s always a space for surrealism in improv).

This segues into a sofa-chat about Tim’s grandfather who trained horses in Te Kuiti and taught Geoff as a boy all he needed to know about toxic masculinity as he suffered indignities trying to handle a sheep. Barry picks up the theme with his anecdote about being the back end of a “pantomine (sic!)” horse – leading to a re-enactment with unfortunate consequences.

Kate initiates memories of childhood pet lambs that ‘disappear’ and may or may not have graced the Christmas Dinner table – provoking Clare to recollect growing up on a farm just out of Te Kuiti where the horses and sheep grow huge … This is the first hint of ‘referring back’; of incorporating previously established elements as the show progresses. It always enriches improv and there could be more of it. (There are other attempts that don’t quite gel.)

Mary’s chat about her short Irish electrician father being a great fisherman finds Wiremu nursing a rod while enjoying a contemplative smoke. This group is not afraid of silence in improv: it draws us in … Joined by his son (Geoff, was it, or Barry?), it emerges he has cancer, causing the son to insist on the ciggie being stubbed out. Here a bit of shoulder-tapping sees players take over roles. There are time-leaps forward, to after Dad has died with Mary as his widow, and back to the river bank where the now compassionate son offers a light for Dad’s fag. This scenario earns a strong round of applause from the audience.

There are more truth-based cancer stories, a scene involving kids licking ice-creams while one tries to talk them into a D&D game – then suddenly we’re in a London night club where someone has a bag of pills. Cue a lively sound and light show and increasingly stoned dancing! A welcome change of pace.

In the prone-bodied aftermath Clare recalls trying to bond with her dad by joining him on a trek to Nepal – played out by Kate and (Barry was it, or Geoff?). Precipitous, hair-raising bus rides with clambering school children and their English text books precede the final falling out, where daughter let’s father have it regarding her childhood trauma caused by his running off with other women and never noticing her let alone showing approval …

The show closes with a return to the café where Barry makes a better fist of proposing to Kate, complete with a choir that doesn’t quite get its act together. Nevertheless a happy ending is achieved!

Between Friends is variously highly relatable or intriguingly exotic and offers a splendid appetiser to the feast of Improv Festival fare to come.  

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